T oday, as part of my occasional series of columns on marital relationships, I’d like to discuss an issue of some interest to both sexes.
Specifically, I’d like to talk about shaving.
More specifically, I’d like to talk about men’s razors, and men’s territorial interest in keeping them to themselves and keeping them sharp.
Even more specifically, I’d like to talk about women who use their male spouse or significant other’s razor to shave their legs, even if they’ve been asked – perhaps even begged – to desist in that criminal activity.
As a man, I can say with fair certainty that my wife has been trying to kill me for over 25 years by using my razor. She dulls it up, but doesn’t bother to inform me that she’s used it, or to replace the blade. Then, when I stumble into the bathroom, blearyeyed, caffeine deprived and not wearing my glasses, I use said deformed razor on my baby face. And commence ripping my skin off in great huge swatches.
I emerge from the bathroom, a towel around my waist, bleeding from a dozen wounds, bits of toilet paper stuck to the wounds, and a wife who seems indifferent to my misery and acts as innocent as a kitten when confronted with her misdeeds.
“I only used it once to shave my legs because I was out of blades for my razor,” she always says. “How could that have made it dull?”
My marriage. Death by a thousand cuts.
I don’t think my problem is unique and, based on anecdotal evidence, would even suggest that it is commonplace. And like most men faced with this threat to their health and blood level, I’ve tried many, many schemes to solve the problem.
Begging and whining didn’t work. Explaining that I could die from infection or complete exsanguination didn’t work. Buying her a special ladies razor and lots of personal shaving products didn’t work, because she always runs out of blades. Switching to an electric razor showed some promise, but that tactic was eventually abandoned because an electric just never shaves as close as a blade, and I can’t remember to keep the thing charged.
Even logic didn’t work. I explained to her that the reason shaving her legs dulls my blade is not because she has particularly coarse hair. It’s just a question of territory coverage. There’s a lot of skin to shave on a set of nice, long legs, and therefore blades get dull faster than they do shaving a few square inches of face.
No dice. She just said that if I was so worried about bleeding out, I ought to change the blade cartridge in my razor every day. But because razor cartridges now cost more per half-dozen than a family size package of filet mignon, that’s not an attractive option.
I figure, therefore, I’ll do the only thing possible. I’ll quit shaving entirely and grow facial hair until I look like a billy goat.
According to a recent article in Advertising Age (sent to me by the prime offender in our family, my wife), I certainly won’t be alone.
According to Ad Age, there’s a definite slowdown in the $3 billion-a-year shaving industry, and people are concerned about it. There are a lot of possible reasons for the decline in sales floating around. Maybe products are better so they last longer; maybe it’s because older men shave less because of hormones; maybe more men are switching to electric razors; maybe it’s the fact that the “stubble look” is popular now among younger men, who only shave a couple times a week.
I have a different theory. I think it’s because thousands of men around the country have simply given up and quit shaving because they can’t keep their razors to themselves, and can’t afford a new set of blades for their Quattro, or Cinco, or Ses, or Siete razor every day.
I think those guys have beaten me to the punch in determining to grow hair like billy goats, and I predict that in the next couple of years, our hirsute ranks will swell even further.
Our spouses and significant others may not like this change in our appearance.
My beard, for example, is admittedly less than spectacular, and looks more like an agricultural experiment to grow crops on barren ground than a full, Grizzly Adams wonder. So there’s a definite appearance factor to consider.
Still, my wife has always liked my beard, so I doubt she’ll react like the wife of someone I heard about who refused to shave until he did.
Of greater importance to her will be the fact that once I stop shaving, there won’t be a conveniently sharp razor lying around the bathroom for her to steal.
It will be interesting to see her burst out of the bathroom some morning in the near future with little bits of blood-soaked toilet paper plastered all over her legs. I hope she takes that experience in a positive fashion and learns something about her past behavior as a result. Then, if I ever do go back to shaving with a blade razor, I might not have so much begging and explaining to do.
As I was grazing around the Net before writing this column, however, I stumbled across a product that might make this entire discussion moot.
If you go to the search engine Google, and type in “razor blade sharpener,” the first hit you get is for a product described as the Save A Blade Razor Blade Sharpener As Seen On TV.
For only $14.99 (after mail-in rebate) the company that makes this product promises that it will sharpen all cartridge razors, up to the five-bladed ones, and give you up to 200 shaves per blade.
Please understand that I am not promoting this product, and don’t even know if it will work as advertised. Often, products sold in this fashion fail to live up to spec.
But wouldn’t it be nice if it did? And if it does work, why hasn’t someone thought of it before?
Maybe a good conspiracy theorist like Oliver Stone could look into it.
My prediction? The whole thing will turn out to have been a plot by Gillette and Procter & Gamble, to keep increasing prices by increasing the number of blades on their razors. They didn’t plan to stop until every razor on the shelf is a 10-bladed Diez that costs as much as a new Porsche and only shaves 6 square inches of facial hair. Unless the missus borrows it to shave her legs, of course. Then it will be so dull it’ll only shave 2 square inches, and will cut the rest of your face off entirely.
“HONEEEEEEEEY!!!!!”
Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at [email protected].